After a long wait and not much of an anticipation backing Intel’s latest release of CPUs, Intel has finally revealed their latest generation of processors said to bring marginally better performance than last-gen CPUs. The three CPUs announced today were Intel’s Core i9-9900K, i7-8700k & i5-9600K.
However, contrary to our original report, it seems like the official MSRPs are lower than what was leaked by B&H’s listings. Regarding specs, there’s nothing out of the blue here. On paper, the specs of all of these CPUs looks more or less identical to what rumors have been suggesting for the past few months. Intel has gone as far as to say that the Intel Core i9-9900K is the best CPU for gaming, as expected. These CPUs for as low as $262 if you’re planning to go for the i5-9600K. Below are the specs and the pricing for these new Intel CPUs.
| Processor Number | 9th Gen Intel® Core™ i9-9900K | 9th Gen Intel® Core™ i7-9700K | 9th Gen Intel® Core™ i5-9600K |
| Base Clock Speed (GHz) | 3.6 | 3.6 | 3.7 |
| Intel® Turbo Boost Technology 2.0 Maximum Single Core Turbo Frequency (GHz) | 5 | 4.9 | 4.6 |
| Cores / Threads | 8/16 | 8/8 | 6/6 |
| TDP | 95W | 95W | 95W |
| Intel® Smart Cache | 16MB | 12MB | 9MB |
| Unlocked | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Platform PCIE Lanes | Up to 40 | Up to 40 | Up to 40 |
| Memory Support | Two channels DDR4-2666 | Two channels DDR4-2666 | Two channels DDR4-2666 |
| Intel® Optane™ Memory Support | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| MSRP | $488 | $374 | $262 |
Intel says that players would be able to enjoy up to 11% better performance compared to last-gen CPUs. In addition to that, gamers should be able to see up to a 41% improvement compared to a three year old CPU if you’re into the whole streaming and recording thing. When it comes to gaming performance though, Intel’s betting on a 10% increase over last-gen Intel CPUs and up to a 37% improvement in FPS compared to a three year old CPU. Their gaming tests were derived from a series of benchmarks ran through a number of titles such as CS:GO, Fortnite, PUBG and a number of other games.
Seeing such minimal changes ever since Skylake dropped, we’d highly recommend a ton of users to hold back on the CPUs until benchmarks make their way out. Not only has Ryzen become a whole lot more competitive over the past year or two, but it seems like Intel’s new offerings may be more of a slab rather than a refresh given that they have been focusing on increasing core count over the past year or two.
The CPUs are now up for pre-order and should be up on various websites soon for pre-order.
